Bass Guitars 8

"Matt then bought a new Jerry Jones hollow body 'longhorn' bass, in celeste g... more

"Matt then bought a new Jerry Jones hollow body 'longhorn' bass, in celeste green. Unfortunately, he soon found out that it wasn't useful in live performance, as it wasn't possible to intonate it to "E Flat" tuning, and thus had to be tuned to E Flat 'against its will'. So it went out of tune fast."
- Karl Koch, weezer.com

"MS: And then I bought a Jerry Jones bass at some point. It was a Danelectro copy, a Longhorn type of thing. There was like a little group of bass players from bands that Weezer was playing with, local bands in LA. And those guys would all give me a little bit of a hell for the Jerry Jones bass cause they would go like ‘ Oh, that’s not a man’s bass!’. You know, it’s a teal-looking, very fragile kind of thing. It sounded really cool but it didn’t take a lot of abuse, you know. And so they would stand right in front of me when Weezer was playing and they were like, kind of like, back when 10 or 15 people that would come out, and they would just stand right in front of us and go, ‘Come on!’ And kind of challenge your manhood or your something, or whatever. And there was always this kind of an inside joke about taming the instrument, you know, kind of doing that Mike Watt kind of style of just being really… just really, taking that bass, and taming it, and all that kind of stuff. Cause we were all just a bunch of barbaric sort of, you know, cavemen-like bass players."
- Matt Sharp

"...He [Matt Sharp] bought a brand new Mexican-made blue Fender Jazz Bass, replaced the neck with a new Telecaster bass Warmoth model, and popped in some new Schecter pickups. This became his backup touring bass, and the black and blue "hybrids" were his two Weezer basses until he left the band."
- Karl Koch, weezer.com

"After getting signed, Matt got a rare Fender Telecaster bass from the early ... more

"After getting signed, Matt got a rare Fender Telecaster bass from the early 70's. This one didnt work out too well. "Too much low end," said Matt. "It just sounded like a big fart." It was sold. Then Matt tried to replicate the black bass, which was quickly becoming established as an extremely cool bass."
- Karl Koch, weezer.com

"Matt then bought a new Jerry Jones hollow body 'longhorn' bass, in celeste g... more

"Matt then bought a new Jerry Jones hollow body 'longhorn' bass, in celeste green. Unfortunately he soon found out that it wasn't useful in live performance ... This is when Matt made the trade for the Warmoth neck. This is a Telecaster Bass style neck, but a little different. A similar but not identical model is still made, but this particular one was an early model and made from a very interesting swirly kind of darker wood, that newer ones just don't have. Though the trade recipient got the whole Explorer Hamer for the neck, he was still quoted as saying, "You're ripping me off!" The neck was that nice! This neck was grafted onto a vintage black Fender Jazz Bass body he got as a gift from Johnny of El Magnifico. Matt got some Schecter pickups and the 'Frankenstein' bass was complete."
- Karl Koch, weezer.com

Amplifiers 3

"Matt started out in Weezer with some gear that he later called 'awful and em... more

"Matt started out in Weezer with some gear that he later called 'awful and embarrassing'. His amp ... was a Gallien-Krueger 800RB. He had it since he was a teenager and it served him well right up through the mid-90's Rentals era. Where it is today is unknown."
- Karl Koch, weezer.com

"He also got a new main amp, a vintage 1967 (?) 200-watt Orange Matamp. Howev... more

"He also got a new main amp, a vintage 1967 (?) 200-watt Orange Matamp. However this did not end up on the Blue Album due to its constant fuse popping (later we figured out that it needed a bigger size fuse than what it said on the back).

Later, in 1995, Matt got a second Orange Matamp, which was very similar to the '67, except it was from approximately 1975. It looked almost new, but this was before they started re-issuing them, so we knew it was old.

On 'pinkerton' and on stage for later Weezer and Rentals tours, Matt went back to the GK, with a Sovtek Big Muff pedal for distortion, and used the Orange just for recording clean sounds and for a back-up. Eventually both Oranges were severely damaged - the '67 from the "Rhino Lad" incident during a '97 show in Richmond VA, and the '75 from a bad freight shipping incident. Their whereabouts and current condition are unknown."
- Karl Koch, weezer.com